On Thursday, the Norwegian oil company DNO announced that they had stepped up drilling activities in the Kurdistan Region amid higher production and are exploring the possibility of oil exports through Syria.

DNO’s net production in Kurdistan increased from 273 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in Q2 2026 to 54,914 boepd in Q3 2026, while gross operated production increased from 5,811 boepd to 77,621 boepd over the same period, DNO said.

The previous decline in oil exports by DNO and other oil companies in the Kurdistan Region was the result of the intermittent conflict that began on February 28, when Israel and the United States launched airstrikes on Iran, prompting Iran and Iran-backed factions to retaliate with drone and missile attacks. 

Production levels largely returned to normal over the summer. In June, Kurdistan Regional Government Spokesperson Peshawa Hawrami announced that DNO had resumed its production at the Tawke and Fishkhabur fields.

“In Kurdistan, drilling activity also stepped up during Q3 with a second third-party rig deployed to take part in the eight-well drilling program initiated shortly before yearend 2025. By far the most active operator in Kurdistan, DNO plans to increase drilling further in 2027 and is considering contracting a third large rig, and also drilling beyond the existing production footprint on the license,” DNO said in a press release.

“We’re the most active driller in Kurdistan by far. I think right now we may be the only IOC that’s drilling,” DNO Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani told investors on Thursday. 

Mossavar-Rahmani also said that DNO is thinking of exporting oil through Syria. Earlier this year, Iraq started to truck oil through Syria due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has affected oil exports from southern Iraq.

“A lot of southern Iraqi oil is now moving up by truck through the pipeline through Türkiye, but also through Syria for export,” he said. 

“As new export routes and arrangements develop, this opens up opportunities for other producers in the region to seek other outlets. So there are possibilities now that have opened up for movements of oil to the Mediterranean through Syria, which was closed during the turmoil in the civil war there.”

Furthermore, he said that, with political stability in the country, other routes have opened up for Iraqi oil, including Kurdistan oil, to move west through Syria. 

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“We’re looking at those possibilities and opportunities. There is, again, more oil going into Türkiye from the south, and new pipelines are being put in place. So there’s a lot more activity now to find export routes from Iraq and from Kurdistan to markets facing west there rather than just the Türkiye option and the option of moving southern oil through the Persian Gulf.

“So we’re very actively looking at how else we can move our crude. In the meantime, we have been able to raise the pricing of our crude into the local market in Kurdistan.”

Fields operated by DNO were hit twice in July 2025 in a wave of drone strikes carried out by Iran-backed militia groups on Kurdish oil fields.

“We went out of production for a while. We came back very rapidly. So Kurdistan has been great for DNO, and remains a very important part of our business,” Mossavar-Rahmani concluded.